Background Jim R. Osborne began collecting surplus military equipment as a child after his neighbor gave him a collection of German equipment he had taken as war trophies. In the late 1960s, he started acquiring land vehicles as well.
Establishment At the urging of friends, the
Indiana Military Museum was founded by Osborne in 1982 and opened to the public in 1984 on Bruceville Road east of Vincennes. A pair of buildings slated for demolition were moved to the property and were the museum's first buildings. The display space was further expanded in 1988 with the acquisition of a piece of a former Harold's grocery store. The museum completed the restoration of an
LVT-4 in 1991. A major change came in the late 1990s, when the museum realized that it needed to focus on finding a new location. A number of objects were loaned to the
Casino Aztar in
Evansville, Indiana for a temporary exhibit in 2000. Shortly thereafter, the museum closed to undergo renovations supported by a grant from the
Lilly Endowment. It acquired
A4D,
F-16 and
Lim-5R airplanes in 2015, a
T-34 tank the following year and the sail of the submarine the year after that. The museum announced plans to complete a new exhibit hall in 2018. The expansion, reduced to , opened the following year. == Facilities ==